Contemplations of a Tormented Mind
by TheAcupuncturist
Summary: "But he was selfish, and despite being conscious of the enormous weight it represented for her to stay by his side, here he was one more time, returning to her arms."


**A drabble of Sasuke's thoughts.**

 **Some of the scars described belong to other stories I've written (the raiton one from my Spanish Fic called Reise), in case you want to read their origins, you can find them in my profile.**

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The light that filters between the curtains is white, too bright for his taste, he prefers dark nights by far. Being devoured by shadows was as natural as breathing; there, swallowed by the abyss was where he felt more agile, well in his element.

He belonged to them, and he adopted them in return as an indispensable part of his person.

Right now, the clarity doesn't bother him, he's not occupied in feeling annoyed by the luminosity, because it allows him to see _her skin._

It's not that he was incapable to discern the details in the gloom, his eyes were not an envied genetical privilege for nothing. With long nights treasured in his mind, _nights by her side,_ he finally found something to thank the Moon for its light.

Pupils traveled slowly by her shoulder, by her trapezius, delaying some time while observing the elegant line of her neck. They traced the pink strands, still messy by the way he had dug his fingers some hours ago.

He didn't find the strength to resist, and knew her well enough to be certain that at this moments, his touch would not stir her dreams.

Apart of the obvious reasons he enjoyed himself when they shared a night, this was one he never confessed out loud, when he woke up after the few hours his body asked for rest; after her physical dedication, Sakura sunk into a profound enough sleep to gift him this abstraction to her expense.

Moonlight was never particularly beautiful in his mind… until he saw it reflected on _her naked body._ His fingers floated above the dermis, as if he was afraid to contaminate the ethereal colour. Gingerly, they descended millimeter by millimeter until contact, beginning a slow path from her right hip.

Amethyst, black, followed the trail of his hand. Index and middle slid smoothly, traveling on each crease and prominence of the scars on her back, stopping long seconds to recall their stories, ones she shared with time, many others that he witnessed, one he left himself.

A slip of wariness when training with Tsunade below her left scapula.

Shards of a near explosion on her right side, pieces he took care of removing from her skin.

A kunai that painted a 9 centimeter stroke just to the left of her spine. One more that decorated above her right shoulder blade; a wound he had made sure to clean.

A kusarigama that was ruthlessly buried in her left trapezius.

One projectile that found its way through the superior part of her right shoulder.

The line Sasori's sword left in their clash.

 _His own raiton_ in the lumbar area, three fingers away from her spine, when he pierced her in that fight, just before the first time they made love together, a full Moon night like this one.

Mismatched colours softened, giving them a gentle smoothness rarely seen in his gaze, always protected by his indifference.

His rancour to life existed, it was one that _never_ could be torn out completely from his heart. With their time together, he fell into account that she, volatile temper and all, soothed him.

Something he could not exactly pinpoint or explain, he didn't know if it was her voice when she talked to him, or her hands when she caressed his skin, perhaps the intense colour of her eyes when she contemplated his, or the strength of her arms when she wrapped him with them, or the smell of her hair…

He never bothered in defining it so accurately, fearing the effect might get mitigated, a risk he was _not_ willing to take, because with the calm that came with all those gestures, he could finally _breathe for real._

As if the presence of this person right at hand's reach, to which he dedicated constant thoughts behind the neutrality of his expression, was a balm for his tormented existence.

He would never pronounce it out loud, words had never distinguished him, even before abandoning his team the first time. He replaced them with the touch of his fingers, with the negligible tenderness of his eyes when he saw her, or the almost imperceptible tremor of his voice the moment he said her name.

For his peace of mind, she knew how to _listen to him,_ even if no sound escaped his lips. She could interpret his traits the same precise way her hands healed his wounds after his missions. The emerald colour seldom failed when detecting those subtle changes in his person, be it the lightness of that miniscule smile on his lips, or the coarse hardness of his gaze when he was upset.

He sighed, an unusual gesture in him, so foreign he hardly reckoned as his. Hate had stabbed his lungs so many years, holding his heart with gripping gravity, sealing it within a dense and impenetrable layer; sighing was weakness, the admission of feelings he convinced himself of _not needing_ , a physical reaction of his inner self he had to extinguish in order to facilitate ignoring it.

Closing the mismatched eyes, he inhaled, reveling in the way oxygen limitlessly entered, without the dull sting burning in his sternum, impregnating the alveoli of Sakura's floral scent; one he inevitably associated to his heart's tranquility, although it beat quite arrhythmic when doing so.

The first occasions he returned from his lonely travel, before she accompanied him, were the hardest ones. Where traversing the high walls surrounding the village generated more anxiety than relief, expecting the illusion of his redemption to shatter into a thousand pieces when crossing, when tempting the idea that his hate might reignite and push him once again to repeat his mistaken way.

His jaw was always clenched, his muscles tense, knuckles white as he squeezed his katana so hard. Those reactions were easy to ignore being so similar to the ones of combat, his mind so familiarized that it pushed them back to a corner in a blink.

What was not easy to endure was the hollow in his stomach, the pressure in his sternum, the apparent lack of air that compressed his chest.

So, as he entered her apartment even if she was not there, when letting himself fall in the sofa and raising the subtle aroma of _her presence_ , he realized that his teeth were not gritting anymore, his tendons ceased marking beneath his skin. Pain in his optical nerves disappeared, eliminating the threat of tainting the black iris with his Sharingan, with tomoe his Rinnegan, as well.

He went to see her before anyone else because he was a little coward, knew that with her he'd find nothing to make him doubt, nothing that would make him question his return.

Because _never_ would she judge him.

He perfectly recognized the damage his hands, his words, his actions had done for so long. All the salt, all the _iron_ that was shed because of him, he also acquainted.

Was very aware of what his abandonment _did to her._ And yet, he did not find it in himself to stay, he hadn't the strength to reckon familiarity inside this territory that still seemed so hostile, so foreign, so _unrecognizable_.

But he was selfish, and despite being conscious of the enormous weight it represented for her to stay by his side, _here he was one more time_ , returning to her arms.

And she, she _always_ welcomed him.

Blindness would have been the only way not to notice the pain in the emerald irides, or the tense line her lips gave shape when he announced his departure, and even if she hid her affliction behind a smile, he would _hear it in her voice._

He perceived, _absorbed,_ every trace of sorrow that preceded his new withdrawal, masking recognition behind the stoic expression, behind the mismatched stare.

He felt like an addict, like a masochist, injecting in his mind the samples of dejection he inflicted upon her to display them behind his eyes after, during his lonely nights.

Tormenting himself with his memories was his constant reminder, his continuous punishment.

A price too low in exchange of forgiveness, if someone asked and he was honest.

His redemption charged Naruto a much higher price, and _demanded sacrifice_ from Sakura.

In his insomniac lucidity, he admitted to himself that he could never stop _hurting her,_ no matter how much he tried to avoid it now.

And for that, he was _much too thankful._

His gratitude _whipped_ inside his chest, a strange self-flagellation, as if one part of his being, one that belonged exclusively to her, tried to collect a little vengeance, a little retribution in her place.

Love stabbed his heart when he noticed _her pain._ A reaction that strained searching for balance between what he took and what he received; he knew she wouldn't ever ask for anything in return, and his treacherous feelings took care of doing so in her representation.

It was barely enough remuneration for her, and he gladly let them steal his oxygen, scratch him, bite, _tear him apart._

Because when he came back and they met again, _her hands_ would soothe him, numb him, _fix him up._

Mismatched colours appeared glassy, still following his hand's wandering over her white back, on the creases of her sinewy anatomy, the softness of her epidermis, grazed by the marks of her experience as a kunoichi.

To his perception, it was incomprehensible the love she gave him so freely, with such surrendering. His skin witnessed it, his mismatched eyes received it when she looked at him, her lips confirmed again when they joined his, when she allowed him to roam _her skin._

 _ **It was unfair.**_

Still, he never found the will to reject it, to walk away and never come back again. What seethed within his being, what he was _rediscovering_ in himself, wouldn't stand it.

He would not bear loneliness again, not now that she had showed him what it felt like to _live without hate,_ what it was _to be loved._

In the gripping claw of his stubbornness, in the cruel realization of his mind, he confessed himself that he preferred hurting her instead of leaving her.

And that filled him with bitter happiness, of an excruciating melancholy.

 _ **Because he knew with every piece of his being that she would allow it.**_

He absently cleaned the tear that slid from his right outer canthus, and wrote on her skin, wet salt used as ink.

Wrote that which he dared not to say out loud, what never escaped his throat, that which boiled in his chest but found no sound in his lips.

Three words that did no justice to the violent fire calcining his heart, one _he gave her_ with his own hands, condemning her to get burned the same way as he.

Despite the flames he brought along, Sasuke had the certainty that the woman in front of him would have a big enough heart to _heal them both._

He pressed himself to her silhouette, his face finding haven in the pink locks. There, sheltered, feeling so calmed, _so welcomed,_ he let two more tears express what he did not have the courage to say. And even though merely symbolic, the way Sakura's hair absorbed them proved the perfect representation of what she always did for him.

Finally he slept, refusing to loosen his embrace, to abandon her side at this moments, as if he was trying to compensate the time they would inevitably pass apart when he decided _to leave again._ As if the momentary, supplicant need of closeness could denote her the pain he felt when he hurt her as he departed.

And despite his deep affliction because of it, he found himself in peace like he could never be in another place, here, by her side.

Peace he only got being close to her and yet he foolishly abandoned, because he was masochistic, selfish, maybe a bit stupid even.

It was only fair for him to receive love if _he suffered for it_ in return, even if that meant as well the suffering of _the other half of his soul._

Salt dried, tattooing ephemerally _'I love you'_ the skin that moonlight bathed.

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 **I wasn't so convinced of publishing this translation but what the hell.**

 **I'd appreciate your comments of corrections, English is not my first language.**


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